Description: (Applicant's Description) University of California San Francisco has nationally recognized tobacco control researchers whose work has contributed substantially to what is known about nicotine addiction, the effectiveness of legislative and other policies designed to reduce tobacco use, culturally appropriate tobacco control interventions for various subgroups of the population, estimates of the costs to society of tobacco use, and other areas. However, until the Cancer Center planning process was well underway, the work of these individuals had not been integrated into a cohesive research program; indeed, owing to their being located in different schools or research institutes across University of California San Francisco, some of University of California San Francisco's tobacco control researchers had never met one another prior to the Cancer Center planning process. The Tobacco Control Program is bringing these researchers together and stimulating plans for collaboration and for the development of shared resources that benefit multiple program members. The goals of the program are: to conduct clinical and laboratory investigations of mechanisms of nicotine addiction that can translate into more effective tobacco cessation methods; to further understand the effects of tobacco use and of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke on risk of various cancers, including studies of genetic markers of susceptibility (gene-tobacco interactions) and investigation of racial/ethnic differences in measures of tobacco exposure and tobacco-related disease risks; to determine effective approaches for tobacco prevention and cessation in defined populations, through controlled trials and through monitoring and surveillance of community-based tobacco control programs; to provide estimates of the economic costs of tobacco use to society; to conduct research on legislative and other tobacco-related policies, including examining the formation and implementation of such policies, analyzing the effectiveness of such policies in reducing use of tobacco and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, and assessing the quality and dissemination of tobacco-related research; and to document the extent of external media influences on tobacco use in our society.